How Did European Contact Affect North American Environment
and Native American Society?

Impact of three factors:

1) non-human organisms--what Alfred Crosby called "the
Columbian exchange"--microbes, plants, animals introduced from Europe (and
Africa) to the Western hemisphere

2) trade-- European ways of valuing commodities altered
Native American economy and ecology

3) settlement patterns--permanent European settlements in North
America reshaped land in accordance with Old World ideals.

The Columbian Exchange

What was the Columbian exchange?

What crossed from Europe?

Columbus unloaded horses, cows, pigs, wheat, barley, sugar
cane. These animals took over local environments in Caribbean; pigs ate
iguanas, shellfish, sweet potatoes that they never had seen before and thrived
in the wild; cattle took to grasslands more lush than in the old world; horses
also underwent massive population explosion in the wild due to abundance of
grasslands. Rats, dogs, and cats also went wild in new environment. The
introduction of these species helped Spanish in later conquests--the horses and
meat that Cortez used to conquer Mexico came from Cuba, where they thrived in
the wild.

Animals not only ones who liked diet of new world foods;
Europeans brought maize and potatoes back from western hemisphere to Europe,
where their superior caloric value made them attractive new crops to plant and
in places such as Ireland totally transformed local foodways, ecosystems, and
social relationships (potatoes traveled to Spain, then through Basque fisherman
to Ireland).

The other thing that crossed the ocean blue w/Columbus was
disease. Columbus landed in Hispaniola (island shared by Haiti/Dominican
Republic) in 1492; by 1600 all of Natives were wiped out. When Natives died,
Spanish turned to Africans for labor, totally remaking Caribbean population so
that islands now virtually all black. Overall, between 1492-1900 Native
Populations declined by 90% while European populations increased 444%. Why
were Native Americans so susceptible to disease?

Why was the exchange of germs between Europe and the Americas
so unequal? Why didn’t American diseases spread back to Europe and wipe out
most of the European population rather than the other way around?

The answer, in short, is that Europeans, because they farmed
with livestock and lived in concentrated settlements, evolved nastier germs.

Agriculture supports higher densities of population than
hunting/gathering, so farmers tend to live in concentrated settlements where
“crowd” diseases thrive. These are germs that evolved to spread quickly, be
acute, leave antibodies, and remain in human populations once they get there.
These type of germs cannot survive in small bands of hunter gathers (they die
out before they can spread).

The same rule about crowd diseases applies to
animals—epidemic diseases spread quickly in herd animals, such as cows and
pigs. Once humans domesticated these animals, the diseases quickly jumped to
humans.

riderpest (cattle) to measles

tuberculosis (cattle) to humans

cowpox (cattle) to smallpox

influenza (pigs) to humans

pertussis (pigs and dogs) to humans (whooping cough)

malaria (chickens) to humans

So, we can see how these diseases arose in Eurasia and coevolved
with rise of dense European populations. Native peoples in the Americas did
not have many domesticated animals and thus germs and antibodies did not coevolve
here and they never developed resistance. Nor did nasty diseases evolve here
that Europeans hadn’t been exposed to before.

Humans not native to Americas (our primate ancestors,
chimps, gorillas, etc never lived here); they crossed over land bridge from
Asia in small groups, and whatever diseases might have been in population died
out without enough hosts during artic crossing. Columbus reintroduced
pathogens that had been devastating to humans in the rest of the
world--smallpox, measles, whooping cough, bubonic plague, malaria, yellow
fever, dysentery. And Native American populations, unlike those in Europe, did
not have enough adults living through these diseases to propagate enough
children to survive the disease, grow to adulthood, and continue race. The
Native American death rate from disease (1/3-1/2 population) similar to that of
European children (that 's why Europeans had so many children). These diseases
killed millions of Native Americans, terrorized survivors, and paralyzed normal
social and political relations. Note that disease spread along trade routes,
ahead of Spanish, French, and English settlement, and contributed to impression
that parts of New World were "empty" in 17C.

Trade: Spreading disease was only one way that trade
affected Native American society and North American environment. European
contact caused a revaluation of the resources that Native Americans used in
their lives. How?

Note that Native Americans did trade with one another before
European contact (myth of self-sufficient Indian tribes), but their surpluses
were circulated as part of ceremonial exchanges, not shipped off to seemly
insatiable European market economy. Beavers, shells (wampum), other goods
subtly took on new meanings for Native Americans; once Micmacs began trading
with French they could not look at a beaver in the same way. Changes in Native
American perceptions of environment resulted in changes in hunting practices
that affected ecosystem long before permanent European settlement. European
trade also meant more warfare among Native Americans in 17C as they competed to
trade with French and English (to gain advantage over their traditional
enemies). It also altered gender relations within Native American society.
How?

Settlement: As Cronon demonstrates, permanent
European settlements wrought greatest changes on North American environment.
How?

In New England, land permanently brought under cultivation
and intensely worked, rather than seasonal use of lands by Native Americans.
As English population quickly surpassed Native American one, more people trying
to get a living out of a smaller geographical area.